people with beards

Having a beard can make you look a lot more masculine. A beard also puts you into a dating niche that can work in your favour. There are many misconceptions surrounding men’s facial hair and women’s desires, but the bottom line is that beards can be sexy and a great asset to your personal style.

There is a lot of mixed information when it comes to women’s beard preferences, but almost half of women like kissing men with beards. However less than 30% of men grow beards, so straight away by growing a beard the odds are on your side.

Confidence is really important when it comes to dating, and you need to see your beard as a big part of who you are. Do that and all the other rules are going to be a lot easier to follow.

Rule #1:Wear your beard with pride and confidence.

Keep It Together

Growing a beard is about a lot more than just letting your facial hair grow out. There used to be a whole industry dedicated to male facial hair in days gone by, and although it’s taken it’s time that industry is making a comeback.

If you want to have a strokeable beard, you need to put in the work. You’ll be needing a beard comb, some good clippers for maintenance among other things, and a daily beardcare ritual to top it off.

On top of styling and maintenance you’ll want to be keeping an eye out for stray bits of food – it happens, we all know it. No one wants to kiss a beard with food stuck in it!

Much in the same way a person thinks about a hairstyle as a part of their fashion, a bearded man must look at his facial hair as a part of his overall style.

Whilst it might sound fun and easy to just grow out a great big bushy beard, with a huge greased up handlebar mustache, you might find that some people would prefer to be seen with someone well groomed. Your beard needs to fit with your partner’s style, as much as your own.

A great way to approach this is to make sure that your beard is a good fit for your face. There are a lot of great options for beard styles, and you will have no problem finding one that fits you perfectly. You might have to do a bit of experimenting with styles to start off, depending on how your beard grows.

It’s important to have a purpose, don’t just let a beard happen. Grow it with intention, groom it, style it, shape it.

Struggling to come up with a style of your own? Most high-street barbers will cater to beards these days, so why not ask their opinion?

Rule #3:Have a vision for your beard and make it happen.

Maintenance!

Planning to keep that beard for a while? You’ll have to keep it in good shape! Which means buying quality shampooing and conditioning products.

The way you treat your facial hair is going to make a huge difference in how it feels to the touch and one of the biggest things that people love about beards is running their fingers through them.

If you don’t take care of your beard hair, it isn’t going to look right, nor will it feel great in your girlfriend’s hands.

Your beard can be a big turn-on or a big turn-off, depending on how well you take care of it. So you have to make sure your beard is an asset that works for you, and not a liability.

If you’ve followed rules 1-4, then you’re beard’s going to be in a great place. But you’ve got to keep up that personal discipline, to keep that beard game strong.

Don’t be put off by the occasional off comment from your girlfriend either, no beard is going to be loved by a woman in the same way you love it.

Don’t be too put off by the occasional but of constructive criticism on your beard either, especially not from your partner (they’re going to be seeing it most regularly after all!). No one’s going to love your beard the way you do, so an outside opinion can sometimes help.

Rule #5:Love your beard and make it an asset that works for you.

This article was written by guest blogger, Victor Bertoni and edited by Bristlr’s Content and Community Manager Samuel Alexander.

It’s officially the end of EuroPride month, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be proud! So we’ll be carrying on with our Queer Beard Questions series as we find more people to speak to. So if you want to get involved, get in touch!

In addition, our #BristlrPride competition is STILL running! It’s been a busy Pride month, and we know (from experience) that when you’re caught up in the moment it can be tricky to do things like enter competitions with amazing prizes. So we’ll be accepting entries for the first week of September!

A post shared by Robert Elkin (@robertelkin) on Aug 31, 2016 at 2:54am PDT

That’s a face of pure pride right there!

And that’s just some of them!

Thanks to the support of our amazing friends at Totem Wolf, Bristlr was able to actually attend Manchester Pride this year. Albeit on a small scale (just me!), but what an experience was had! Next year, we’re thinking Bristlr Pride float! Fingers crossed…

…and couldn’t resist getting some of their merch. Hopefully this won’t be the last we hear from them!

This is the personal bit – the most important part for me was attending the vigil on the final day of Manchester Pride. With so many attacks on the LGBTQ community in recent months, a community that I am proudly a part of, I wanted to show solidarity in the face of adversity. A truly humbling and moving experience.

Photo credit – Glenn Jones

So thank you to everyone that has shown their support in joining in with Pride and helping Bristlr celebrate, whether you entered the competition, spread the word, helped us raise awareness or helped us actually attend a Pride celebration ourselves (Thanks again, Totem Wolf!)! It’s been an enjoyable month for us at Bristlr, and we were proud to take part!

Don’t think it’s over though, the team at Bristlr will strive to always raise awareness for our fellow LGBTQ community all year around! So as always, watch this space for exciting things to come.